Nematic DNA Thermotropic Liquid Crystals with Photoresponsive Mechanical Properties |
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| Authors: | Lei Zhang Sourav Maity Kai Liu Qing Liu Robert Göstl Giuseppe Portale Wouter H Roos Andreas Herrmann |
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| Affiliation: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China;2. Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, AG, Groningen, The Netherlands;3. Key Laboratory of Sensor Analysis of Tumor Marker, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China;4. DWI‐Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, Aachen, Germany;5. Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, AG, Groningen, The NetherlandsPresent addresses: DWI‐Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, Forckenbeckstr. 50, 52056 Aachen, Germany and Institute of Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University, Worringerweg 2, 52074 Aachen, Germany |
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| Abstract: | Over the last decades, water‐based lyotropic liquid crystals of nucleic acids have been extensively investigated because of their important role in biology. Alongside, solvent‐free thermotropic liquid crystals (TLCs) from DNA are gaining great interest, owing to their relevance to DNA‐inspired optoelectronic applications. Up to now, however, only the smectic phase of DNA TLCs has been reported. The development of new mesophases including nematic, hexagonal, and cubic structures for DNA TLCs remains a significant challenge, which thus limits their technological applications considerably. In this work, a new type of DNA TLC that is formed by electrostatic complexation of anionic oligonucleotides and cationic surfactants containing an azobenzene (AZO) moiety is demonstrated. DNA–AZO complexes form a stable nematic mesophase over a temperature range from ?7 to 110 °C and retain double‐stranded DNA structure at ambient temperature. Photoisomerization of the AZO moieties from the E‐ to the Z‐ form alters the stiffness of the DNA–AZO hybrid materials opening a pathway toward the development of DNA TLCs as stimuli‐responsive biomaterials. |
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| Keywords: | DNA photomechanics stimuli‐responsive thermotropic liquid crystals |
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